Certain systems and techniques for treatment monitoring utilize separate acquisition and processing units, for example to perform certain processes, such as displacement estimation, offline in a separare hardware unit. To implement such techniques in a clinical setting, it can be desirable to implement a clinically-oriented, fully-integrated high frame rate platform suitable to analyze and stream real-time feedback of treatment assessment to a user.
High frame-rate imaging can be considered in relation to parallel beamforming, which, alone or in combination with fast analog multiplexing, can reconstruct an entire image following a single acoustic transmission with frame rates up to 1000 frames per second. Parallel processing techniques can be implemented and performed in vivo using a phased array configuration, for example “Explososcan”, where data acquisition rates can be quadrupled with simultaneously reconstructing four receiving beams per a wide single transmit beam. Certain Graphical Processing Unit (GPU)-based beamforming approaches can further increase the imaging framerate and resolution. Such GPU-based approaches can also achieve high frame rate imaging, including, for example, Synthetic Aperture (SA) imaging and Short-lag Spatial Coherence Imaging (SLSC).
In certain imaging techniques, including ultrasound elasticity imaging, software beamforming techniques utilizing various transmit sequences can achieve high imaging rates and resolution, such as composite imaging, plane-wave or divergent transmit beam. High frame rate elasticity imaging can provide suitable quantitative imaging of tissue properties, for example with estimation of motion generated by external compression or acoustic radiation force such as Transient Elastography, Shear Wave Imaging (SSI), Elastography, ARFI imaging, and Harmonic Motion Imaging.
Certain imaging techniques, including ultrasound elasticity imaging, can utilize previously beamformed RF signals, which can be obtained from the beam reconstruction of the entire field of view through the entire imaging depth. Harmonic Motion Imaging for Focused Ultrasound (HMIFU) is a treatment monitoring technique for High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU). HMIFU utilizes an Amplitude-Modulated HIFU beam to induce a localized focal oscillatory motion, which can be simultaneously estimated and imaged by HMI. In localized elasticity imaging for HMIFU, generally only the focal spot is considered as the region of interest. As such, suitable beamforming strategies for HIFU treatment monitoring can be configured to reconstruct only the focal region, which can reduce computational cost and allows real-time streaming of elasticity maps throughout the entire treatment window.
However, there remains an opportunity for improved treatment monitoring systems and techniques, for example to provide improved frame rate, improved spatial resolution, and real-time feedback over an extended monitoring period.